


Beauty & Agony

by WhoopsOK



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Character Death, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Immortality, Monsters, Murder, Non-human, Other, Sadism, Serial Killers, Torture, Undead, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 23:56:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14413239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoopsOK/pseuds/WhoopsOK
Summary: There are few things that Thresh finds more interesting than suffering, few things more motivating than loathing. It is quite inevitable, of course, then, that this leads him to The Golden Demon.(Jhin finds himself a part of a duet.)Heed the tags.





	Beauty & Agony

**Author's Note:**

> _Heed the tags._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Should any of them make you wince, perhaps now is the time to turn back. Thresh and Jhin are not good people, if you’d even call them people; they do very bad things in the lore and in this fic. I doubt I need to tell you there should be no attempts to drag these things into the real world, but should you need to hear it, there it is. However, if you’d like to imagine those things being done to you, that is between you and your own private thoughts. Enjoy, darling.

“ _I’ll tear you apart, make beautiful things from pieces of you._ ”

TEAR, Part 1 by Son Lux

 

//

 

Thresh considers himself a master of catering to his own pleasures, his innate sadism.

Before his vault was destroyed, he’d had favorites. The books that screamed when he tore their pages, the people that trembled and wept at the sound of his clattering approach, the spells he never finished reciting. All of them, his to torment and, occasionally, to kill. The songs of their pain are familiar to him. He knows the tunes, he played them on repeat for decades, _personalized_ their suffering to his tastes. Even now when he passes over the ruins, he can feel their misery, the constant wails in the fog and shadow; the fear he will come back for them, the greater fear that there is nothing but darkness for the rest of time.

He leaves them to shiver as he walks over their mass grave.

There is an entire world for him out here, fearless and immortal, new songs to add to his repertoire. He paces the shadows, hunting souls to add to his collection. Generally, he follows the scent of pride and virtue; the resilient presences of heroes that would take time and effort to reach their inevitable breaking. Though, occasionally, he will hear a note of agony so exquisite, he will pause to listen, feel it across the miasma – loathed to not have caused it himself. There are few things that Thresh finds more interesting than suffering, few things more motivating than loathing.

It is quite inevitable, of course, then, that this leads him to The Golden Demon.

 

//

 

Thresh watches the massacre because it’s what he came to see, but he very nearly finds it hard to focus over the wondrous waves of fear and dread wafting from the scene.

The tones of misery he normally draws out, one wailing instrument at a time, swell around the Demon like a mass choir. Thresh felt the screams inside his skull from miles away, dozens of them, crying, dying, _terrified._ In his many, _many_ years, Thresh has never heard anything like it.

That is to say, Thresh has never heard a more perfect example of harmonious agony in all his life.

The last man standing – a hero with a heavy sword, a battle cry that shakes the earth, and a fragile, human body – staggers in place when the Demon shoots him, then stumbles backwards when he is shot again, _two, three—_

“ _Four!_ ” the Demon shouts and the man slumps to his knees. Before he has even properly fallen to the ground, a sudden growth of flowers springs up from his chest. He lives just long enough to stare down at it in horror before it – and he – explodes. With a spray of blood, fire, and lotus petals, the hero is no more.

Thresh breathes in the man’s defeat and anguish as he reaps the soul, greedily, into his lantern.

The Demon looks up at him then, not like he’s just noticed, but like it hasn’t mattered until now. Humming to himself, he reloads his gun with slow precision; his eye never once strays from Thresh. “Oh, how I do love an audience,” it says, nearly sings.

“The Golden Demon,” Thresh says, watching the glint of gold armor on his hands. He knows this name because people whisper it with fear in their hearts, speaking in quivering voices between each other about its callous deeds. He’s never seen the creature of legend, but feeling the dread still permeating the air around them, seeping into the dirt below leaves no doubt as to who— _what_ exactly he’s dealing with.

“That is one of my stage names, yes,” the Demon replies, twirling its gun. “And _what_ are you?”

“The Chain Warden,” he answers as he approaches, the jangle of his chains met without the terror they normally inspire. The Demon just stares at him, the gun suddenly steady in his hand. Before he can get any closer though, there is a sound to their side. He has no doubt that the Demon is a good enough shot to manage it, but the woman – reeking of honorable bloodline, valiant spirit, hero _, hero_ – has a net launcher leveled at them and, well… _Thresh_ would be fine.

But the Demon is of no use to him captured.

The shot flies wild when Thresh hooks her, descends on her like an enraged animal and cuts right through her screaming mouth. He would love to pick her apart, intends to as her soul flickers out of her body to joins his others, but for now he has other matters to attend to. “Thresh,” he says to the Demon.

“Thresh,” it repeats distastefully.

Thresh feels a spark of annoyance at the tone. “I am—”

 “A classless philistine,” the Demon interrupts with a sigh.

Bold, _much_ bolder than Thresh is used to. The insult means nothing to him, he is not trying to be an _artist_ , but the fact that it was tossed out so brazenly makes him growl. However, when he turns to spit something back at the Demon, a flash hits him and he finds himself immobile. He looks down and there are burnt lotus petals crackling under his feet, the swirling embers of a starting fire, he can’t _move—_

The ground beneath him explodes. Had he been any less than he is, anything _mortal_ , it might’ve taken his legs out from under him, perhaps even killed him. But Thresh is more than any man, and finds himself largely unharmed and _deeply_ annoyed.

The Demon is gone before the smoke even clears.

 

//

 

The prison warden – _unworthy of his title, the spineless coward, caught with his hand down his tunic_ – is beheaded and reaped without much secondary consideration. His panic is loud, _sour_ and Thresh doesn’t care much for the sound of it. But it is fear nevertheless and he feeds on it and, more importantly, gets the man out of the way. Thresh was first, before anything, a record keeper and finds his way through the catalogues easily. The file on the Demon is thick, but Thresh is a quick study and determined. Still, he reads it several times, nearly unintentionally committing the whole sordid affair to memory.

Solitary by virtue of nature, Thresh doesn’t normally care to impress anyone. Oh, all he has ever craved is fear and misery, but that _is_ what has captured his attention in the first place. The terror the Demon— _Khada Jhin_ inspires in the souls of his countrymen is too unique to pass up on.  Thresh means to acquire a ticket to his _performance_ , he just needs to time his steps correctly and impress the virtuoso.

This, of course, means he takes his time.

The woman surely has a name, but Thresh never thought to ask, is certain she couldn’t answer now if he were to. Over the months, Thresh has peeled her skin off several times and sewn it back together, her body a patchwork of scars and segments, like a quilt. One of his finest pieces, _The Scream_. At this point, she doesn’t scream much, hardly reacts at all. She is tired and he is tired of her. She is still quite pretty, though. She still suffered beautifully. He takes care with this last time he will touch her mortal body, the stitches tight and exact as they pull her skin taut. He starts to lift her innards back, already plotting where to lace up the gap as he has before, when he stops himself short, thinking better of it. For this purpose, she needn’t be whole ever again.

The stage is set close enough to a mountainside town where the authorities will find her quickly, but not quickly enough for her sake. Before he leaves, he sticks a stolen, ordinary gun into her mouth – _beautiful, beautiful, she doesn’t even resist him_ – and makes her misery infinite. Her soul screams again, as it had at first, when it is reaped and Thresh swells with her dread.

Someone in town nearby screams, too, at the sound of the shot.

Of course, it is not nearly as ornate as Jhin’s displays, but looking down at her, at the lotuses he’s threaded into her stitches, laced through her intestines, the final two most perfect blossoms springing from her eye sockets, well… The authorities are probably smart enough to know The Golden Demon has inspired someone, a knockoff seeking to share in his infamy. Thresh is already coveting the thought of the frightened whispers circling the towns, the renewed dread he’s just inspired.

More importantly, everything he knows about Jhin implies he would _never_ , under any circumstances, willingly share his fame with a _classless philistine_ , a boorish armature tracking mud across his stage. He’d put that dog down with his own gun.

That is all the chance Thresh needs.

 

//

 

It is quite nearly impossible to sneak up on a being like Thresh, but it still makes him pull up a bit short when he strides out of the fog of war and finds himself directly in line of the barrel of a gun.

“ _What do you think you’re doing?_ ” Jhin demands, visible eye livid and voice tight with fury.

_Courting you_ , Thresh thinks dourly, but keeps his expression level. “Have I gotten your attention?”

“My _attention?_ You’re as subtle as cannon fire, you’ve gotten _everyone’s_ —” The thought seems to enrage him so much he loses his words. He cocks his gun, but Thresh is no fool, ducking out of the way and yanking the gun off center in a coil of chain. The bullet sprays dirt over his foot; he’ll live.

“I have a proposition,” Thresh says like Jhin hadn’t just actively tried to kill him. “An _interest_ in your performances.”

 Jhin stills momentarily, something calculating about him as he searches Thresh’s face, eye trailing down to the hook dangling from his gun. “There is art and there is artist,” he replies shortly, “You are not art and I will _not_ compete for _my_ spotlight.”

Thresh had expected as much. However, “If I recall correctly, you referred to me as the audience.” The tension in his chain lessens and he allows Jhin to take his gun back. Jhin doesn’t draw it immediately which Thresh takes to mean this discussion is already won. Jhin is an exhibitionist and Thresh is willing to indulge his narcissism to the extent that it benefits him.

“Your desire is just to watch?” Jhin says, a tilt to his voice that might’ve stirred Thresh in another life, but now just amuses him as was likely the intent. “Perhaps you aren’t completely tasteless.”

“I leave the artistry to you,” Thresh says plainly, lifting his lantern for Jhin to peer inside. “I’m more concerned with matters of the soul.”

 

//

 

The next performance, Thresh is lurking in the shadows like a stage hand as Jhin bursts forth into center stage. The terror of the gala rises in a cacophony of sound as soon as Jhin enters, screams and crashing as people try to flee but it is too late, far too late. The doors are barricaded and Jhin is a dead shot. There is a heady and wonderful swell of fear in the room as Jhin mows them down, sprays of blood and flowers coating the floor. Some die instantly, some lie bleeding until Jhin makes his way to them – Thresh reaps them all with rapture, caught up in the rising action and the terror it causes.

Jhin puts on a _magnificent_ show, inspiring fear in ways most men have never imagined.

Only one man manages to make it out of Jhin’s reach, firing off a pistol with a trembling hand. Jhin had more than enough time to get out of the way, but stands impassively reloading his gun. Thresh’s lantern absorbs the blow before it gets even close, the souls inside groaning at the impact.

Thresh feels a pleasure so sharp it nearly hurts when the man flees with hope flaring in his soul, only for it to snuff out as he spots Thresh.

When he turns to run, Thresh doesn’t hesitate.

 

//

 

Jhin watches the hook tear it’s way out of the man’s mouth and lock it open, humming in interest as Thresh’s chains clank and drag the man to his knees.

“Not as precise as a bullet,” he observes, as the man grabs at the hook, choking on it and his own blood, eyes shock-wide. Jhin’s heart thuds as he watches the man’s fingers split open on the blade, shaking uselessly as he desperately tries to dislodge it from his throat. He looks up at Thresh. “An acquired taste, but I am of a refined enough palate to see the appeal of it.”

Thresh makes a neutral sound, but his gaze is bright on Jhin, the man gurgling between them like an afterthought.

“I suppose it is beautiful, too, no?” Jhin says, stepping over to the man, eye hot on his acquaintance even as he raises his gun. Thresh doesn’t care about the beauty, Jhin knows this. But agony, oh, _torment_ he will work for and _revel_ in every moment of it. The room reeks of blood and Thresh is glowing bright with power, some of it even seeping into Jhin’s own ecstasy.

Beauty and agony – Jhin is coming to understand they may be referring to the very same thing.

“Delightful,” Thresh chuckles agreeably.

“Yes,” Jhin says as he pulls the trigger, a tune that he cannot name playing in his head as blood sprays across Thresh’s clothes. “Yes, quite.”

They hardly pay attention to the body that slumps to the ground, instead, watching with interest as its soul goes screaming into the void of Thresh’s lantern to join countless others.

Beauty and agony. They look at each other once more.

Yes, quite.

 

//

 

They aren’t together always.

Jhin is a perfectionist and has rehearsals, commissions to fulfil for buyers of which he hardly cares to remember the names. Thresh has, of course, explained that this makes no difference to him. Souls that die in terror are all the same, enemies of the state or no, but will leave Jhin to his preparations as necessary to keep him in the long run. He has his own corners of the world to haunt, as well.

Still, even far apart, they spare time to think of each other.

Thresh has come to understand the aesthetic of Jhin’s kills quite intimately, his demand for perfection marrying beautifully into his obsession with death. So Thresh pauses, just for a moment, in the middle of his reaping when he sees _her_.

Someone takes this as an opportunity to make a break for it and he lashes out at their flare of hope. Savagely, absently, he hooks their intestines from their body, then their soul from the carnage before they even take three proper steps.

Advancing on the woman, he grabs her by the chin as she shudders and wails, begging. She has pretty eyes, panic-wide and dark as night, and her clothes fit her as though they are ashamed to even touch her, aware of their own unworthiness.

“You are _beautiful_ ,” Thresh tells her over her inane babbling. She smells delightfully terrified. She’s wet herself and she’s bleeding, her blood trickling down her forehead and around her nose looks like the growth of deep roots.

She _is_ beautiful.

“I know someone who can make you perfect.”

 

//

 

Jhin makes a mess of her, he makes a _masterpiece_ of her.

 

//

 

Jhin does not find Thresh beautiful, but he must admit the artistry of his making is… _exceptional_ , perhaps. He is high on his last kill, a beautifully fragile gift from his companion who is more interested in the crumbling of mountains than the shattering of glass. Thresh preserved her and Jhin took pains to break her slowly just to watch her agony enthrall Thresh in the hours before her reaping. He is glowing with pleasure, with _woe_ and Jhin thinks blandly that he might just adore the old warden.

Thresh pauses, preemptively coiled with violence when Jhin steps towards him, but Jhin doesn’t mean to make this a fight. He is humming to himself, guns politely stored out of the way, as unthreatening as he could ever be. He has told Thresh he is not art, but oh, isn’t anything _made_ – and Thresh did make himself – art in some way or another? The eye of the beholder and all that? It only takes a keen eye and Jhin is in a masterclass all his own.

Reaching up, Jhin’s hands scrape down the protrusions of Thresh’s head, fingering the knob of each bone there. He comes down to find the sharp edges of his teeth, ignores the way he growls at the intrusion of Jhin’s fingers into the cold void of his mouth. Incorporeal though he could be, he permits Jhin’s ministrations, the pressing on his shoulders, his chest, on down until Jhin’s got one hand on his wrist, the other gripping the chain of the lantern.

Thresh has killed men for less than this, but stands still, fascinated by Jhin’s attention.

“Chains are gaudy,” Jhin murmurs.

“Chains are effective,” Thresh corrects.

Other than humming, Jhin doesn’t acknowledge that comment. Eventually, he steps back, sated in his curiosity, in his partner. “There is artistry in you yet, Warden.”

Thresh does not care for artistry.

Though, it is not unfair to acknowledge that he takes great pains to indulge his artist.

 

//

 

Throughout their relationship, Thresh only dies once.

By Jhin’s count, this is one too many times.

He hadn’t even been aware that one could kill a wraith, let alone one as old and powerful as Thresh, but he watches it happen. There is a history between Thresh and this man, something that puts a savage determination on the marksman’s face as he comes after them. It’s the exact sort of determination Thresh revels in shredding, in breaking piece by piece, but this time – just this once – the other man is fast enough, _too_ fast to be survived.

Thresh had made it a game of cat and mouse, refusing to kill him outright, but the hero had not come to play. The weapon in his hand had been made specifically for Thresh, had been made just to kill the undead.

Jhin feels a violin scream, a lonely and violent screech taking over when light breaks through Thresh’s chest, rending apart the darkness of his body. For one blinding moment, when Thresh turns to him, yelling wordlessly and reaching out as he is sucked into his lantern, Jhin feels no ecstasy at watching a truly operatic death.

When the curtain rises and raises his guns, the performance is not an expression of beauty.

It is an expression of rage.

Jhin kills the man, of course, but he starts at his feet and works his way up, maintaining an incensed monologue the entire time. He only pauses when the man’s screams stop, breaking around a word, a _name._

“ _Senna_ ,” he gasps with pain, looking past Jhin like only dying man can, reaching for ghosts. Reaching for the _lantern_ , as it were.

Well, Jhin does not stand for divided attention and Thresh would never have stood for his lantern representing someone’s _hope._ Thresh’s story will _not_ end with the hero having hope, Jhin will not allow it.

“ _Oh_ ,” he sings mockingly, “You wanted to _free_ someone, of course! A lover’s tale for the ages!” He picks up the lantern, watching with wonder as it dangles heavily in an unfamiliar hand. Though he wonders absently what _would_ happen if he broke it open, he holds it over the man’s—or… what’s _left_ of the man’s body. “Hell is not really the sort of place to go alone, is it?”

Choking on his own blood, looking sick with impotent rage and terror. “ _Damn you, I’ll—_ ”

“Suffer,” Jhin sighs, “What I would give to see what Thresh has made of your _Senna_.”

The time for screaming is done, leaving only the need for a dramatic end to the act. He shoots the stranger as soon as he opens his mouth, then his guns as an afterthought. The flowers that bloom out of him are blood red and simply _gorgeous_ , he can note now, out of his fury.

Though he cannot see the man’s spirit leave, the lantern shudders in his hand, flaring briefly before dimming back to a soft glow. Yes, quite a fitting end for the Chain Warden, he supposes. Thresh will likely enjoy flaying his killer’s flesh inside the lantern, perhaps make him watch as Senna is tortured just out of his reach, over and over, for all eternity. Yes, a good choice, Jhin was an excellent costar to this play.

The lantern is heavy and doesn’t suit him, but he carries it on with him anyway, the thought of leaving it behind repugnant. It proves useful, as even shadows cringe away from it as Jhin moves, aimlessly seeking his next show.

It hangs in his various studios for almost two weeks before it crashes to the floor.

The sound disrupts Jhin, has him slinging his gun back together and spinning around before it even registers what’s happening. When he sees the lantern rattling across his floor, he watches curiously, prepared for a fight.

He gets a wraith instead.

“ _Jhin_.” Thresh says, rising back into this plane like a phoenix, a _wondrous_ chorus welcoming a hero back after singing his lament. Jhin is _delighted,_ the show goes on!

“Ah,” Jhin exclaims, “The undead never die, is that it?”

Thresh stares at him for a stretch of silence. “You kept it.”

Jhin motions absently, coming towards him. “Of course, dear,” he replies, “ _You_ were mine so it stands to reason _that_ would be mine, too.”

“I am _nobody’s_ ,” Thresh snarls, but the heat in it is misplaced, a denial. Jhin knows what is happening. _Oh_ , their solos have combined into a duet, there is no stepping off this stage until they’re dead for good.

“No? Not even for a little while?” Jhin asks, hands raising up to grab Thresh by the face. The point is well and truly made by the fact that he’s _allowed_ this, but he still edges towards dramatic with a soft, “Just for one small death?”

Thresh doesn’t attempt to deny him this again.

 

//

 

“I will claim your soul one day,” Thresh says, watching Jhin rebuild his gun.

Jhin laughs darkly, genuine in his amusement. “I have no doubt.”

Thresh steps into his space. He is an imposing presence, but so is Jhin who stands before him, unafraid. “You will spend all eternity making masterpieces of the souls in my lantern,” he says and waits for Jhin to understand this is not a threat.

For all else he may be, he is also brilliant – Jhin’s eye brightens instantly.

Thresh permits Jhin to grab his face, creeping close enough for Thresh to feel it when he replies, “Darling, you are _sublime_. I will make them sing for you.”

 

//

 

When it finally happens, Thresh is dancing somewhere between livid and anticipatory.

Everyone in the building is slaughtered mercilessly, _messily_. He means to leave them suffering, but only makes it one step before a thought occurs to him. He turns and reaps their souls, a screaming flood, into his lantern. Then he traps them in The Box, like a staging area. He steps over their bodies without looking back. How these men had captured Jhin is unclear and unimportant. They will suffer for depriving him of his companion, they will spend the rest of time in agony for what they have done.

Their agony is secondary for the moment, though.

Jhin’s arm is blown off, the metal one, but the other doesn’t seem to be fairing much better. His mask is askew and he chuckles dizzily when Thresh gets to the entrance of the room. “Warden, you’ve come for me at last,” he slurs happily.

Thresh’s footsteps splash with blood as he gets closer. Jhin went down in a massacre, the _ceiling_ is splattered with gore. Shen is in pieces, Thresh can only _assume_ the other corpse is Zed. He doesn’t ask how bad off Jhin is, there’s no need – Thresh lives and breathes suffering and he can smell it all over Jhin, even if it doesn’t fill him with the same sort of thrill it normally does. Jhin is amused by his own pain and does not fear death, much less his Warden.

Still, Thresh crouches before him, between one leg and what is left of the other. He adjusts Jhin’s mask to the proper position, doesn’t remove it or even think to. This is his face. “Shall I make you suffer?” is all he asks.

Jhin breathes and it smells like adoration, an odd, nearly sickeningly cloying scent. Yet Thresh feels high on it. “Yes, darling, draw it out while. I know you’ve saved them for me.” And so he has.

And so he watches, for a long while, until Jhin starts to pass out, eyes glazing over where they’d been locked on Thresh’s. He stands.

Jhin can’t even move his eyes to follow. “Shall we dance, then, Thresh?”

“Immortally, Khada,” Thresh answers, but leaves his chain dangling. He casts about the carnage until he finds what he’s looking for. Not nearly as artistic in his hands, but the same sort of brutally efficient.

“Oh,” Jhin says, delighted and somnolent, when Thresh returns to him, “The curtain rises on the Virtuoso…”

“That it does,” Thresh says again and places the barrel of the gun under Jhin’s chin, beneath his mask. They do not bother with goodbyes.

The mask only shifts slightly, even when the top of Jhin’s head comes off in a spray of rose petals.

 

//

 

The souls normally scream when they are reaped, dying in agony and knowing there is only more to come. They shriek and wail mournfully, frightfully as they are sucked into the lantern.

Thresh listens in ecstasy every time.

 

//

 

…No.

No, of course, Jhin does not.

Jhin’s spirit laughs manically as it enters the lantern to land among his captors. His arrival causes a wave of terror and misery so delicious that Thresh laughs, too, lifting the lantern to peer into its glow. Among a sky of plain, tiny turquoise stars, a supernova – _a lotus blossom in constant flux between purple-pink and fire orange, Thresh’s most cherished one_ – takes center stage.

“ _My Virtuoso_ ,” Thresh says aloud, a smile splitting his face, “ _Oh, the eternity we shall spend together._ ”

 

//

 

“ _Strange, new, marvelous world, opened up and unfurled, ‘til you see what I see._ ”

TEAR, part 2 by Son Lux

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading… you are a masterpiece just as you are
> 
> I main Thresh, but take a wild guess who my second favorite sadist is? I’m mad that he doesn’t even have a face and I still find him hot ajfdlaks
> 
> Also, an aside on the off chance anyone should ask: I have A Thing about the concept of infinity/eternity, so I sincerely doubt I’m ever going to explore the idea of “Thresh carrying Jhin around in the lantern for all of time” any further. Because… well, tbqh, I’m not sure my anxiety could take it. But! Should anyone else want to play around with it, by all means, feel free!
> 
> EDIT, 4/27/18: @Arya_Ren is a genius. The number of the day is 4!!!


End file.
